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Party food

Black Hole Cakes_

You will need

What to do

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 180oC/350oF/gas 4.
  2. Cream together the margarine and sugar until light and fluffy.
  3. Beat in the eggs one at a time.
  4. Fold in the flour and cocoa powder.
  5. Line a bun tray with paper cases and spoon in the cake mixture until about 2/3 full.
  6. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes.
  7. Put on a wire rack to cool
  8. Melt the plain or milk chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water.
  9. Cover each cake with melted chocolate and allow to cool.
  10. Melt the white chocolate in a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water.
  11. Take a teaspoonful of white chocolate and drizzle it in a spiral from the centre of the cake to the outside.  Behold the black hole!

Black holes are formed when a massive star collapses from its own gravity, a black hole has such a strong pull of gravity that not even light or other stars can escape from it.

Exploring black holes from a safe distance is one of the jobs of the international Space Very Long Baseline Interferometry Program (Whew! SVLBI for short). SVLBI is bringing together radio telescopes around the world and in space to create a huge "virtual radio telescope" larger than Earth.

For everything you ever wanted to know about a black hole check out this site.

And if you want to see what it is like to fall inside a black hole then try making your own board game - Make an intergalactic board game

And this very Parents section on Planet Science does a mean space game for you to print off and play – it's a bit like snakes and ladders, and gets in lots of science careers info along the journey.

Miniroll Martians_

You will need

What to do

  1. To make the chocolate buttercream, sift the icing sugar and cocoa together.
  2. Put the butter into a small bowl and add the icing sugar and cocoa.
  3. Beat with a wooden spoon until smooth and thoroughly mixed.
  4. Place the chocolate rolls end up on a plate.
  5. Using the chocolate buttercream decorate the rolls with sweets so that they look like monsters. E.g. use gummy teeth and lips, liquorice allsorts or smarties for eyes etc.
  6. Add antennae, hair or hats and use writing icing to add the final touches.

So is there life on Mars? Well, we need to see what the conditions are like on this planet. It probably got this name due to its red colour; Mars is sometimes referred to as the Red Planet.

While the average temperature on Mars is about -55 C, Martian surface temperatures range from -133 C to almost 27 C. Though Mars is much smaller than Earth, its surface area is about the same as the land surface area of Earth. It is also home to Olympus Mons: the largest mountain in the Solar System rising 24 km (78,000 ft.) above the surrounding plain. Mars has a very thin atmosphere composed mostly of carbon dioxide (95.3%). The average pressure on the surface of Mars is less than 1% of Earth's. However, it is thick enough to support very strong winds and vast dust storms that can engulf the entire planet for months. A Martian year is equivalent to 687 Earth days and the force of gravity is less than half that here on Earth. See Mars Program and this too.

Shortly after Mars was formed, it may have had more atmosphere, more water and more heat - all conditions that would make it more likely to support life. Today, Mars is cooler, has little water, and has a thin atmosphere composed mostly of carbon dioxide. All these conditions are unlikely to support life. So no one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eaters after all … unless Spirit and Opportunity from the Mars Exploration Rover Mission tell us otherwise.

Asteroids_

You will need

Making the popcorn

  1. Heat up the vegetable oil in the large pan over a high heat, but don’t allow it to smoke. You can test if the temperature of the oil is right for popping the popcorn by dropping a couple of popcorn kernels into the pan – if the kernels pop or spin round then oil is the right temperature for popping popcorn.
  2. Cover the base of the pan with popcorn kernels and hold the lid on firmly. If you can find a pan with a transparent lid then you can watch what is happening. Keep shaking the pan, coating each popcorn kernel in oil, until the popping stops.
  3. Remove the pan from the heat and place the popcorn in a large bowl removing all the unpopped kernels.

Making the asteroids

  1. Melt the marshmallows and butter in a large heavy saucepan over a low heat, keep stirring the mixture so you don’t burn it on the bottom of the saucepan.
  2. Remove the pan from the heat and gradually mix in the popcorn making sure everything gets a good coating of marshmallow mixture.
  3. With well-buttered hands roll the mixture into conker-sized balls and place on greaseproof paper to cool.

What’s happening?_

Popcorn kernels are the seeds of one type of corn; if you planted them they’d grow into a new plant. These seeds have a very hard outer coating; inside they contain a little bit of water so the cells are kept alive until the seeds start to grow.

When you heat up the popcorn kernels the water inside turns into steam and expands. This increases the pressure inside the kernel until it is strong enough to burst through the outer layer.

When the kernel explodes the expansion of the steam puffs out the soft insides of the kernel - this can be so explosive that popped corn can be 30 – 40 times its original size.

Some kernels don’t have a high enough water content to create the pressure needed to pop the popcorn – these are the ones that you find at the bottom of the pan unpopped.

What are asteroids?_

It is believed that asteroids are the bits and pieces left over from when the Solar System was formed 5,000 million years ago!  They are large pieces of rock and metal and fall into three types: carbonaceous, silicaceous and metallic.  Most asteroids orbit the Sun between Mars and Jupiter in a region called the Asteroid Belt. 65 million years ago a massive asteroid crashed into Earth and many types of plants and animals, including the dinosaurs, were wiped out.  Alas!  Tyrannosaurus No-more-us!

Star surprise_

You will need

What to do

  1. Cut the cheese into thick slices and use a small star shaped cutter to cut stars from each colour cheese.
  2. Thread a star followed by a cherry tomato, another star and a chunk of cucumber on a skewer.
  3. Arrange the skewers into the foil-covered grapefruit and place on a plate.

A star is a luminous globe of gas producing its own heat and light by nuclear reactions (nuclear fusion). They are born from nebulae and consist mostly of hydrogen and helium gas. The faintest stars are the red dwarfs, less than one-thousandth the brightness of the Sun.

Our Sun is just one of an estimated 100 billion billion stars in the Universe.  It is a dwarf star. Throughout their lives, stars go through many phases of expansion and contraction. When they are a normal size for their weight they are called 'dwarfs'. Brown dwarfs are failed stars that never heated up enough to explode into a normal star.  White dwarfs are dying stars that are slowly burning away the last of their fuel. The term 'white' is a bit of a misnomer though, as they range in colour from hot white through to cool red. Eventually however, they will all become black dwarfs - non-luminous dead stars.

When an old massive star has run out of all its fuel, it collapses amidst a catastrophic explosion called a supernova. This releases so much light that it can outshine a whole galaxy of stars put together.

Edible Solar System_

You will need

What to do

  1. Pre-heat the oven to 150°C/300°F Gas 2
  2. Cream the butter or margarine and caster sugar together until they are light and fluffy. Stir in the flour and, once mixed, knead the dough together until it forms a ball. Add a sprinkle of flour if the dough is sticky.
  3. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until it is about 5mm thick.
  4. Use the smallest biscuit cutter to cut three biscuits from the dough (Pluto, Mercury and Mars).
  5. Use the next-size-up biscuit cutter to make two biscuits (Venus and Earth).
  6. Use the next larger biscuit cutter to make another two biscuits (Neptune and Uranus).
  7. Use the largest biscuit cutter to cut the last two biscuits (Saturn and Jupiter).
  8. Place the biscuits on a baking tray and bake in the centre of the oven for 25 minutes or until golden brown.
  9. Let the biscuits cool before decorating.
  10. Keep track of the planets as you cut them out so you can decorate them correctly after they are cooked.

Now for the decoration

Mercury has a rocky surface and is orange-red in colour, so use coloured icing and hundreds and thousands to decorate this biscuit.

Venus is covered with think, yellow clouds so you will need yellow icing.

Earth is an obvious one! Decorate with green and blue icing and a sprinkle of icing sugar to resemble the clouds.

Decorate your Mars biscuit with red icing.

Jupiter is a giant ball of yellow, orange and red gas arranged in stripes. Use stripes of coloured icing decorate with a red sweet in the middle to resemble Jupiter’s Great Red Spot.

Saturn looks yellow because of its foggy atmosphere and is famous for its rings, so use yellow icing and lay a few pieces of liquorice on the biscuit to resemble its rings.

Uranus looks green so decorate with green icing.

Neptune is blue with faint stripes so decorate with blue icing and make faint stripes with sprinkles of icing sugar.

Finally for Pluto, sprinkle a little icing sugar on the top of the biscuit to resemble this icy, rocky planet.

Now all you have to do is arrange the biscuits in the correct planetary order and serve. Just remember this rhyme:  My Very Easy Method Just Shows Us Nine Planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto)

Useful space links_

http://ology.amnh.org/astronomy/index.htm

http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/StarChild.html

http://www.space.com/teachspace/

Party Drinks

Cocktail page

Grown ups only please answer this question to gain access to the cocktail page

What was the hit that Babylon Zoo had in 1996? Click to answer

Martian milkshake_

You will need

What to do

  1. Place 2 or 3 scoops of vanilla ice cream in a tall plastic container.
  2. Let the ice cream sit in your plastic container for about 10 minutes at room temp.
  3. Put 1 or 2 drops of blue food colouring into the ice cream and then pour in about one quarter cup of milk.
  4. Use a big spoon to gently stir all of the ingredients together.
  5. You may need to add a little more ice cream or a bit more milk, depending on the consistency of your milkshake.
  6. Pour your milkshake into a small, clear, drinking glass.
  7. Add a drinking straw.  For extra effect, colour and cut out an alien shape and glue it to the straw.

Is there life on Mars? Well not as far as we know.  The conditions on Mars are not ideal for supporting life.  The atmosphere is thin and mostly composed of carbon dioxide, there is very little water and the average temperature is - 55oC!  Add to that the very strong winds and vast dust storms that can engulf the entire planet for months and the possibility seems very slim. But we could be wrong…  and Commtechlab.msu.edu

Where do Martians drink beer?
At a Mars bar!

The Black Hole_

You will need

What to do

  1. Add a small amount of blackcurrant squash to a tumbler.
  2. Fill with diet cola.
  3. Add a drinking straw. 
  4. For extra effect, colour and cut out a planet shape and glue it to the straw.

Black holes are formed when a massive star collapses from its own gravity, a black hole has such a strong pull of gravity that not even light or other stars can escape from it.

Exploring black holes from a safe distance is one of the jobs of the international Space Very Long Baseline Interferometry Program (Whew! SVLBI for short). SVLBI is bringing together radio telescopes around the world and in space to create a huge "virtual radio telescope" larger than Earth.

For everything you ever wanted to know about a black hole check out this site

And if you want to see what it is like to fall inside a black hole then try making your own boardgame -

Make an intergalactic board game

Extraterrestrial alien juice_

You will need

What to do

  1. Fill a glass with lemonade.
  2. Add a few drops of green colouring.
  3. Make ice cubes by freezing diluted blackcurrant squash.
  4. Add a couple of ice cubes to the drink before serving.

Some people believe that extraterrestrial aliens are responsible for crop circles, the appearance of flattened areas of crop in intricate patterns. Perhaps the aliens are trying to tell us something?  Or maybe the crop circles are a hoax produced by humans?  Perhaps it is simply due to the weather.  Who knows?  For further information look here.

If your party is in summer and you have a lawn handy, let it grow a bit before and cut a crop circle in it with the Flymo!

Cake ideas

http://familyfun.go.com

http://www.coolest-kid-birthday-parties.com

UFO cake_

Bake one large round cake for the bottom part and bake the top cake in a glass ovenproof bowl. Use light blue icing and add Smarties to look like lights.

Earth, Sun and Moon cake_

Bake three 9-inch round cakes. Ice one blue (ocean) with green (continents) for Earth, one yellow with swirls and one white for the moon (you can also add a drop of black food colouring for a metallic colour). Make the icing extra thick and you can make realistic craters by pressing in with different sized measuring spoons.

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